1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and, in particular, to manufacturing composite parts. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for manufacturing sections of a fuselage for an aircraft.
2. Background
Aircraft are being designed and manufactured with greater and greater percentages of composite materials. Some aircraft may have more than fifty percent of their primary structure made from composite materials. Composite materials may be used in aircraft to decrease the weight of the aircraft. This decreased weight may improve payload capacities and fuel efficiencies. Further, composite materials may provide longer service life for various components in an aircraft.
Composite materials may be tough, light-weight materials, created by combining two or more dissimilar components. For example, a composite may include fibers and resins. The fibers and resins may be combined to form a cured composite material.
Further, by using composite materials, portions of an aircraft may be created in larger pieces or sections. For example, a fuselage in an aircraft may be created in cylindrical sections that may be put together to form the fuselage of the aircraft. Other examples may include, without limitation, wing sections joined to form a wing or stabilizer sections joined to form a stabilizer.
A section of a fuselage may be constructed as a single piece using an inner mold line tool or an outer mold line tool with an inner mold line tool. Composite material may be placed on the inner mold line tool to form one fuselage section. Forming a section of a fuselage as a single piece, as opposed to manufacturing several pieces and attaching and/or bonding those pieces to each other, may provide time and cost savings. The one piece barrel configuration may provide structural improvements and weight savings due to the elimination of splice hardware and the thinner skin at the areas where the splices would have been. Further, the lack of joints may reduce in service inspection requirements.
When using an inner mold line tool, the placement of composite material may be a part of the manufacturing process that takes the longest amount of time in manufacturing a one piece fuselage section. The inner mold line tool may be used throughout the process of manufacturing a one piece fuselage section. In other words, the inner mold line tool may not be freed up to begin manufacturing another one piece fuselage section until the current section has been completed. Consequently, the production of one piece fuselage sections may be rate limited by the amount of time needed to manufacture a one piece fuselage section because the inner mold line tool may not be used to manufacture another one piece fuselage section until the current one has been completed.
One solution may involve using multiple inner mold line tools. This type of solution, however, may increase the costs of manufacturing single piece fuselage sections because of the expense of additional inner mold line tools. Also, in some instances, the number of inner mold line tools that may be used may be limited by an amount of space available at a manufacturing facility.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account one or more of the issues discussed above.